Lawrence Brainerd

Lawrence Brainerd (16 March 1794-9 May 1870) was a US Senator from Vermont (FS) from 14 October 1854 to 3 March 1855, succeeding Samuel S. Phelps and preceding Jacob Collamer.

Biography
Lawrence Brainerd was born in East Hartford, Connecticut in 1794, and he moved to Troy, New York in 1803 and to St. Albans, Vermont in 1808. He became a businessman with interests in stores, banking, shipping, and railroads, and he served in the state legislature as a Whig before joining the Liberty Party and then the Free Soil Party. He served in the US Senate from 1854 to 1855, filling Samuel S. Phelps' vacant seat, and he went on to become the first head of his state's Republican Party after it was founded. He died in 1870.